Samuel Butler
“I do not mind lying, but I hate inaccuracy.”
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler, Chapter XIX — “Truth and Convenience” (1912) — ed. Henry Festing Jones
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Attribution
Samuel Butler
Source
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler, Chapter XIX — “Truth and Convenience” (1912) — ed. Henry Festing Jones
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About this line
Chapter XIX of Butler’s notebooks is called “Truth and Convenience.” Under the heading “Falsehood” he keeps a run of short notes on lying, and this is the fourth.
The one before it: “Any fool can tell the truth, but it requires a man of some sense to know how to lie well.” The one after: “A friend who cannot at a pinch remember a thing or two that never happened is as bad as one who does not know how to forget.”
Why we carry this line
Why did I pick this quote? It made me laugh, because it’s true of me.
The design
A small bracket sits under “lying.” It’s a dimension line, the mark a draftsman uses to measure something exactly. Butler doesn’t object to the lie, only to getting it wrong. So the lie gets measured.
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